Cold + Allergies = 😭

The cold I've got is following a somewhat familiar path of symptoms. It started with a few days of chest congestion, then turned into a head cold (sinus congestion) with worse chest congestion. Then yesterday the sinus congestion turned into a runny nose... and my irritated nasal passages welcomed in an old friend, allergies. 😳

It didn't help that there were scents— air "freshener" shit— in the room where I was attending all day training. Then, a person who'd smelled like he'd taken a fucking bath in cologne sat next to me. I held it together until lunch but then.... 🤯 I was a mess of sneezing all afternoon.

When training ended a few minutes after 5pm (yay, on time!) I whispered to my boss that I needed to skip out on the group dinner. I went up to my room, showered, and put on fresh clothes— clothes that hadn't been in the room of "Why the fuck do people call adding atmospheric irritants air freshener?" scents. I spent 90 minutes just trying to recenter myself and feel presentable enough to go back out in public. ...For even small values of "public", like n=1 people.

And n=1 was what I did for dinner. I sat at the hotel bar and ordered a small meal. There was nobody else there, just me and the bartender. That was perfect because I didn't have to worry about sitting far away from people in case another sneezing fit hit me. Fortunately none did anyway.

The downside of an empty bar is that it's boring. And I just wanted to stretch out anyway, not sit up on a stool. After I finished my meal I took most of my second glass of beer back up to the room with me. I nursed it for almost 2 hours as I stretched out in bed with my computer. I weighed going downstairs to the hot tub. I was sure the hot water and steam would make me feel better. But at that point I just didn't have the energy for it. I got to sleep at the completely reasonable hour of 10:30.

I slept fitfully the first half of the night. I wasn't sneezing but my head was stuffed. I awoke every hour, drank water, and took more pills as necessary. But then after my 1:30am-ish wakeup I slept all the way through until just after 6, with the brightening sky out my balcony window waking me up naturally. Yay, small victories!

Today I'm feeling better than yesterday. ....Well, I'm feeling better than yesterday afternoon. I am not felling better than yesterday morning. Meaning, things could go completely south on me when boxed up in the room of goddammit-stop-spraying-that-shit-around. We'll see.

Told Meeting Moved to 7am. At 7:45.

Ironically the day after a(nother) 6:30am meeting was canceled on short notice, after I'd already gotten up early for the day, today the opposite happened. A meeting scheduled for 9am was moved 2 hours earlier, to 7am, and I was only told at 7:45.

This was Day 2 of my all-day intensive training I traveled to Orange County for. My boss sent me a Slack message at 7:45am. "Hey, not sure if you saw the message, but [C level exec] said we're starting today at 7am."

Oookay. "Give me about 10 minutes to get down there," I wrote back.

I was already showered and dressed for the day— I had an 8am online meeting I was preparing for— so all I had to do was quickly pack my suitcase to leave my room for the day. And that was quick because I laid things out in order last night.

BTW, it turns out there was no message I could've seen before 7:45am. The CxO announced the change orally at dinner last night. The dinner I skipped because I was sick. There was no email update or slack message to the group. Just my boss reaching out to me individually 45 minutes late to ask me if I "saw" it.

Sheesh.

Rebooked to an Earlier Flight. Twice!

Well, there was one benefit to day 2 of our all-day training session starting 2 hours early today. We finished early. We broke just after 2, and I headed to the airport.

I kind of figured wanting to finish early was why the exec "called an audible" at dinner last night and said let's start 2 hours early. Every time we have multi-day seminar the execs' admin assistants tell us in finger-wagging fashion that the session goes until 5pm and we must not book flights home before 7pm— because they don't want people disappearing a few hours early on the excuse of "Oh, I have to catch a flight." Except half the execs then book early flights. Heaven forbid they should get home at midnight or on a redeye! 🙄

I even shared a ride to the airport with the exec who'd booked a 3:30pm flight. On a training day that was originally scheduled 9a-5p. Because apparently he didn't want to miss dinner with his family, even though it's his admin who sanctimoniously told the rest of us not to book flights departing before 7pm.

Why did I hop a ride to the airport at 2:15 when my flight wasn't 'til 7:30? Because as soon as it was clear the seminar was going to be done-done at 2pm I opened my Southwest Airlines app and booked a same-day confirmed change to the 4:30pm flight.

We got to the airport quickly— it was just a few minutes away as we were meeting at an airport hotel, not a beach boondoggle— and passed through security quickly. As I was consulting a map of places inside the airport, thinking "What can I do to kill 2 hours until my flight?" it occurred to me, Wait, there's an even earlier flight I can catch! I pulled out my phone another time, opened the app, and rebooked to the 3:30pm flight. Changing flights twice in 30 minutes... I felt like such a baller!

The upshot of all of it was I got home, as in home-home, at 5:15pm. With my original schedule it would've been 9:30. Hooray for being able to roll with the changes.